The Sick
by Blazing Fool
Summary: In the end, there is nothing left but the hunger... and the pain. Bit of disturbing imagery. [Oneshot]


Um, wow. I dunno what the _hell _prompted this. I blame the seafood, along with an unhealthy dose of scary movies. Um… sorry for any mental scars this little piece 'o crap might instigate…

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He opens his mouth, expecting to throw up again. Instead he gags. That's perfectly logical, he supposes, as he hasn't really been able to hold down food of any sort. The fact that the vomit on his bedsheets had hardened to a flaky crust over the past week is evidence of this.

His name. That's all he wants to remember. It's such a simple concept; even the youngest of toddlers can remember their own name. But in his feverish haze, even this eludes him. Of course, so does everything else. Rational thought seems beyond him now.

All he knows is that he is _Sick._

Bad things have been happening to The Sick. They turn into something. First they grow weak, delirious, moaning. They lay in bed, looking so weak and pathetic. And looking at them you feel that there is no way they could suddenly spring up, snarl with that feral hatred in their eyes, and pounce upon you, gibbering and screeching, ripping and biting through your flesh… turning you Sick as well.

But of course that's exactly what happens.

And it is about to happen to him.

As his death swiftly approaches (this he knows, however much he tries to deny it), things begin to come back. His name, for one.

_Charlie._

Yes, that's it. Charlie. In spite of the pain, the fever, the Sickness, Charlie smiles. That's him. Charlie. 38 years old, balding, happily married, computer technician with his Master's Degree, and about to become an insane blood-thirsty animal. Ah, but he was certainly not the only one. There weren't a whole lot of people left, in fact, his entire town was pretty much abandoned.

Except for _them, _of course.

We wonders if Karen –_that is her name, right?- _will have the sense to dispose of his body before he becomes one of them. For although the other ones seemed to have forgotten them, there will be no way for her to escape in this enclosed house if he becomes one. She probably won't. Woman always was sentimental. He wishes there was some of way of warning her. _Burn me, _he would shout. _Throw me outside! Anything! But for God's sake, woman, don't just leave me in here to get you! _But his throat feels like it's been sliced up with a rusty saw, no way he'll be shouting anything anytime soon.

Charlie groans. The pain, dammit! It _hurts! _And the worst part was _there was nothing he could do. _The pain he could handle. This damnable _weakness, _this inability to even reach over to the table next to him and grab his pain pills… This he could not handle. In a way… He almost wished he could hurry up and die.

3 minutes and 37 seconds later, at 3:34 A.M., he got his wish.

The bile in his throat simply became too much. He choked, coughed, gagged, involuntarily doing whatever he could to rid himself of the horrible taste, texture, essence of the disease. But he's been fighting too long, too hard, and it is too much. He gives a little gasp, and closes his eyes, for his last human thought is that he does not want Karen to come upon his corpse with its dead-fish eyes staring up at her. Charlie's body slumps, and he is finally gone.

But good things never last.

At 3:35 A.M., the corpse's eyes snap open.

For a moment, it is almost as though Charlie himself is back. He recognizes the room. He recognizes the house. He recognizes the smell of death and The Sickness, and realizes that he may have just died.

But I'm here. I'm not one of them. Maybe I just recov- 

And then the hunger sets in, and he is Charlie no more.

_Meat. Meat. Meat. Meat. _Like a thousand drums resounding in its head, this simple word reverberates around his consciousness, seems to become a requirement as necessary as breathing. Seems to become _part of _it, seems to merge with its very being.

The charlie needs _meat_.

There is meat to be had in this house, it can smell it. And the christopher will hunt the meat, catch it, tackle it to the ground.

And EAT it. 

It springs off the strange surface that it has been laying on –_bed?_- and whirls towards the exit. The meat is nearby, in the structure. Not only does it now smell it, but he can _taste _it. It is sweet, juicy, tender… It needs it. It needs it now.

It lunges for the exit and rushes down the hallway. Suddenly the meat is on the move. If the charlie was capable of sentient thought at this point, it would have cursed itself for its impatience. The meat has heard it coming, and now knows that it is no longer weak and encumbered by –_The Sickness-_ whatever was holding it down before. Now it is strong. And hungry.

The charlie leaps over the balcony and lands in front of the meat. It looks even more appetizing up close. It can barely contain its hunger, in fact, why bother? It'll eat it here and now.

The meat lets out some sort of high pitched noise that hurts the christopher's ears, something along the lines of "Arly!", then bolts for an exit. NO! The charlie won't let the meat get away.

The meat almost gets away, but the charlie grabs it by the –_back of the shirt- _neck and pulls it close.

And for an instant, just one insignificant span of time, it hesitates. It can… almost… -_Wifewifewifewifewifedon'thurtKaren- _

But then it's gone. Never mind.

The charlie lunges at the meat's neck, where the scent of blood is at its strongest. But the meat has taken the opportunity to grab some –_lamp- _object, and smashes it over the charlie's head.

It howls. The sensation! This horrible sensation! The charlie can remember a time not so long ago, when this strange, horrible, feeling was accompanied by all sorts of other feelings: weakness, fear, sorrow-

_Sickness._

The meat takes advantage of the distraction to escape, making incomprehensible sobbing noises as it runs. The charlie no longer cares. The groaning, moaning hunger from his abdomen has blessedly stopped for the moment, but it is replaced by a new feeling, familiar and a thousand times worse: pain.

As Karen runs for the front door, away from the thing that is no longer her husband, she wonders if they will be waiting for her outside. Fine. Better to be devoured by the corpses of complete strangers than by her own Charlie.

She bolts out the front door, and locks it behind her, wondering crazily if she remembered her keys. She runs into the driveway, gets in her car, and high-tails it out of there. The open road… Maybe she will forget it all. Maybe she can just drive off into the sunset, away from her past and her problems, like in the movies.

She doubts it.

Back in the house, the charlie's pain had subsided somewhat. The downside was that now the hunger was back. The meat was gone, the MEAT was GONE! NO!

It would not allow this. It would eat. It would feast. It would catch the meat. Somehow, some way, it would escape this ravenous hunger. No matter what it had to do.

The charlie tracked the meat's scent to a large shape in the wall, presumably the exit. But it was shut. He bumped into it, trying to get it to open. A passerby would have laughed at the charlie's animal mentality, but the charlie was furious. How had the meat gotten through here? Snarling, he threw himself at the door, but to no avail.

A voice in the back of its mind was –_liftthelock,it'snothard-_ was whispering something, but it had no time. The meat was escaping. It threw itself at the door again, harder this time.

The pain was back, but this time the hunger did not disappear. Instead, it almost seemed to increase. It was desperate now. The charlie needed to get out of here. If it could pass through this obstacle, everything would be fine. The pain would abate. The hateful hunger would be satisfied.

It slammed the door again, roaring and gibbering with fury. Pain and Hunger and Frustration combined to form Rage in its mind, intertwining in a maddening vortex of pure, unfiltered animal instinct.

Again! _Wham! _The charlie would not be denied.

Again! _Wham! _It would take-

Again! _Wham! -_could not allow-

Again! _Wham! –_the meat-

Again! _Wham! –_Karen, no, not-

Again! _Wham! –_bite-

Again! _Wham! _–flesh-

Again! _Wham! _–rend-

Again! _Wham! _

-Devour.-

Charlie Braughtington, husband to Karen Braughtington, died on March 5th at 3:34 in the morning, and was reanimated precisely three minutes later by the unnamed disease that eliminated most of the human race. He and his wife had been hiding out in their house while the rest of the town fled… or chased, of course. He then proceeded to attack his wife, who escaped by hitting him over the head with a household lamp. She had never suspected that the old thing would someday save her life. She locked the front door as she fled, presumably out of habit, and drove away in the family van parked outside. It is unknown what happened to her from there on out.

Charlie, meanwhile, had lost the brain-power to open the simple lock on the front door. He was trapped inside his own home by the very door he had often exited through, whistling on his way to work. Apparently out of animal instinct, he assaulted the front door multiple times before finally breaking through several hours later. He wandered the town, finding no real survivors other than the occasional stray pet, which he would casually disregard. Roughly one week later, he stumbled across a group of survivors on the highway, but was shot twice across the head and chest before he could catch any of them.

A fitting end for an animal.

Yeeeeeeeah… Short, weird, and very Steven King-esque. Rather a bit of a change from my usual light-hearted humor, eh?


End file.
